Overview of discrimination in health and care services

If you’re treated unfairly when you receive health or care services because of who you are, it may be unlawful discrimination. If you’ve experienced unlawful discrimination, you may be able to do something about it.

Read this page to find out more about how to decide if something is unlawful discrimination.

Identifying discrimination

The law which says you mustn’t be discriminated against is called the Equality Act 2010. Discrimination which is against the Equality Act is unlawful. This means you can take action in the civil courts.

You can follow these steps to check whether unlawful discrimination has taken place:

why you are being treated unfairly - unfair treatment only counts as unlawful discrimination if it's for certain reasons

who is treating you unfairly - unfair treatment only counts as unlawful discrimination if it's carried out by certain people